Synthetic cells get together to make electronics

A network of artificial cells that work together to act as an AC/DC converter has been built. Demonstrating that synthetic cells can team up to achieve such feats is a step towards building synthetic tissues to interface biology with electronics, says the team of chemists behind the work.

But that work focuses on only individual cells, says Hagan Bayley at the University of Oxford. He’s more interested in making artificial tissue in which individual synthetic cells work together.

Bayley’s group, working with colleagues at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, has made a step towards that goal by connecting together multiple artificial “protocells” so that they share electrical signals.

JERUSALEM (AP) — A Palestinian gunman killed three Israelis and critically wounded a fourth outside a West Bank settlement before he was shot dead Tuesday, dealing a new blow to the efforts by President Donald Trump's Middle East envoy to restart long-stalled peace talks.